Eight-year-old impersonates her mother’s work-from-home multitasking in viral video

‘She is the poster person for all kids who endured their parents working from home this last year,’ one viewer comments

An eight-year-old’s impersonation of her mother working from home has gone viral for its relatability.

Last week, Colleen Chulis, a regional vice president of sales for SAP SuccessFactors who lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, uploaded the video of her daughter Adelle on LinkedIn, where the eight-year-old can be seen typing on her computer while simultaneously talking on the phone and asking others in the house for quiet.

The video begins with Adelle typing on her keyboard before picking up her phone to answer a call while sitting at the desk of her home office.

However, after the eight-year-old answers the call and exclaims: “Hi Jennifer!” she then imitates the way her mother presumably snaps her fingers to ask for quiet.

“Guys, be quiet, go and get your clothes,” Adelle can be heard telling her audience as she recreates the juggle of working from home and motherhood, before turning back to the phone call and continuing: “Yeah, sorry about that.”

As Adelle continues to multitask between her phone call, writing a post-it note and typing into her keyboard, she relatably adds: “Yeah, the dog is very crazy, yeah,” before telling her phone call: “Yeah it’s hard to multitask you know!”

The responsibilities of parenting then interrupt again, with Adelle asking the person on the phone to hold on one second before she snaps her fingers again and urges her children to “go upstairs and get ready”.

“I’ll have to call you back later, the kids are going all crazy and I’m about to get on a Zoom call,” the eight-year-old continues, before rapidly beginning to type on her keyboard once more.

On LinkedIn, where Chulis captioned the video: “My eight-year-old daughter asked me last night if she could do an impression of me. I wasn’t sure what to expect.This was the first and only take,” it has since been viewed more than 8.8m times. 

The one-minute clip has also been met with thousands of responses, with the comments ranging from appreciation over the eight-year-old’s acting skills to those finding the skit entirely relatable.

“Your daughter is brilliant and very observant. In a way it’s reassuring to witness that I’m not the only mum behaving like this. However she is sending a very strong message to us parents…’slow down and SEE ME mum’. Thanks for sharing!” one person commented.

Another said: “I love it!  She did a great job. This looks very similar to what goes on in my home right now. Especially when she starts snapping her fingers and waving them out the room, that’s me. I’m sure most women that work from home can relate!”

“This hits close to home,” someone else wrote. “The snaps are right on point, [as is] the one-handed typing, the Zoom call, and the dogs.”

As for the accuracy of the video, Chulis, who has been working from home with her and her husband’s three children Adelle, Luke, 10, and Declan, six, since the start of the pandemic, told Good Morning America that she often has to field requests from her children while she is talking on the phone to customers or on a Zoom call.

However, she did tell the outlet that she is grateful her job has been so flexible, adding: “I try to balance it out in my own way and as long as everyone’s happy and healthy, then everything’s OK.”